Search the Dark

by Charles Todd

  “Was it his father’s?”

  “God, no! Whatever you think about Margaret Tarlton, I assure you she—”

  “Then who was its father? Daniel Shaw? You? I’m not interested in Miss Tarlton’s child. I’m only interested in what bearing it might have on her murder.”

  “The child is dead—it was born dead! It has no bearing on anything!” There was an undercurrent of wild grief behind the defensive words. A wrenching pain.

  “Mr. Napier, if Hildebrand learns of it, it could send a woman to the gallows. It gives her a clear motive, don’t you see that, to kill a suspected rival.”

  “No. I’ve met Aurore Wyatt several times. She isn’t my concern; she can take care of herself, she’s clever and resourceful and strong. Simon is very vulnerable. Whatever this fool Hildebrand is trying to do, he’s wrong. I think Margaret was the unwitting victim of that poor sod they’ve got in the jail at Singleton Magna. There’s no more nor less to it than that. What I want from you is the assurance that my daughter—and Simon Wyatt—won’t be dragged through the newspapers on the whim of an incompetent policeman!”

  “Mr. Napier, I don’t believe Bert Mowbray killed Miss Tarlton. I think that her murder was no accident, it was a deliberate attack on her personally. And I suspect that there has been another murder of a young woman, some months ago. How they’re related I can’t say at the moment—”

  “Do you believe Simon is guilty of either of them?”

  “No, why should I—”

  “But one of them might be set at the door of his wife? Possibly both?”

  “As to that, I can’t tell you—”

  “Then find the answers, damn you! I came to warn you that I don’t want my daughter’s name dragged into this. I’m taking her back to Sherborne at once. And I don’t want to read about Simon in the papers either, nor about that house in Chelsea, nor about any child that might or might not have been born.”

  Rutledge said, “Margaret Tarlton’s murderer has covered his tracks quite cleverly. Still, there’s an answer somewhere. Ferreting it out may open the Wyatts to speculation and some scandal. I’ll avoid that if I can, I’ve always tried to shield the innocent. But in the end there may be nothing either of us can do to protect them. The other woman who may have died by the same hand—”

  “I’m not concerned with another woman! I want you to stop this fool Hildebrand from walking in heavy boots through the life of a man who is very easily destroyed. Personally, professionally. Do you hear me? If any of this touches Simon Wyatt, I’ll hold you personally responsible. I’ll see to it that you suffer the consequences. I want this business cleared up without damaging Simon or Margaret, I want Margaret’s killer hanged, and I don’t want any foulness from this affair touching my daughter in any way. You would do well to believe me, Inspector! I am a man who never makes idle threats.”

  Napier got to his feet and stood looking down at Rutledge. Whatever he read in the other man’s face, he changed his tactics abruptly.

  “There’s that fellow, Shaw,” he said roughly. “He was in love with her in the war, and he’s still in love with her for all I know. If Mowbray didn’t kill her, then Shaw probably did. Find out, and make an end to it.”

  Rutledge felt himself welling with anger as Napier walked away. Napier had protected his own, he hadn’t cared about anyone else. He had willingly sacrificed Mowbray, he had callously abandoned Aurore to the mercy of the police. Even Daniel Shaw was expendable. Politicians made difficult decisions; Napier was used to sacrificing one good for another. But this was ruthlessness.

  Walking away from the pond, Rutledge toyed for a moment with the possibility that Napier had killed Margaret himself, out of jealousy or anger at her refusal to carry on with an affair that she may have considered, in the end, was taking her nowhere. But Napier was too well known in Dorset—even whispers of his involvement would ruin him. This was, possibly, what drove him harder than his concern for Simon Wyatt. If he’d wanted Margaret dead, surely he’d have killed her anywhere but here.

  By the same token, to be fair, Napier had been unable to show his grief, his love, his loss, in public. He had had to stand aside and let strangers bury Margaret, turning whatever it was he felt inward, to fester and rankle. He may have made his threats out of love for her rather than any fear for Simon.

  They were still threats, and Rutledge took them very seriously.

  “It’s no’ in your hands,” Hamish reminded him. “Whatever Napier has said. But either way, ye’re sacrificed as well.”

  “Not if I can help it,” Rutledge said as he turned the crank and brought the car to sputtering life. He got in and drove to the Wyatt farm, his mind full of Hamish:

  “If you no’ can finish this business, you’ll be back in yon hospital, crouched in a dark corner of your soul. It’s got to be finished, look you, and not for the woman’s sake, for your own!”

  Jimson was working in the yard, mending the wheel on a barrow, his gnarled hands deftly shifting the shaft to bring the worn place within reach. He didn’t look up until Rutledge’s shadow fell across his shoulder and onto the dirtstained wood of the long handles.

  “Lord, you know how to startle a man!” Jimson said, straightening up and dropping the shaft. “Now look what you’ve done,” he went on in an aggrieved voice, his face twisting to see Rutledge against the brightness of the sun.

  “I need your help,” Rutledge said. “I can’t go to your master or your mistress, the police from Singleton Magna are coming soon with a search warrant. But I want to go through the house and the barn. Now. Before they get here. Will you walk with me?”

  “What’re you looking for, then? What’s the police after?”

  “A suitcase belonging to a dead woman. A pretty hat. A murder weapon.”

  “Pshaw! There’s no pretty hat here. Nor suitcases I don’t know about. If it’s a murder weapon you want, take your pick.” He gestured to the array of tools lying in the dust at his feet. “Any one of those will kill a man.”

  Hammer, a spanner, a pair of clamps, all of them—he was right—potential weapons.

  But Rutledge shook his head. “No. Not these.”

  “Then what?” Jimson demanded. “That stone? A length of wood?”

  “I don’t know. All right, we’ll forget the weapon for the time being. The suitcase. We’ll search first for that.”

  “What does it look like, then? Mrs. Wyatt, she has suitcases in the attic.”

  “I don’t know, I tell you! If I did, I wouldn’t be here. Look, this is useless, Jimson! I need to walk through that house, I need to see for myself what’s in the barn. Hildebrand and Truit will be here in the morning—”

  “Truit, is it?” Jimson demanded, incensed. “We’ll see about that. All right, then, the front door’s open, and I can see it from here. Touch anything that don’t need touching, and I’ll know it.”

  Rutledge thanked him and walked around to the door. It was unlocked, as it had been before. Thinking about that, Rutledge opened it wider and stepped into the hall, where the stairs rose to the first floor. To his left and right were a pair of rooms, opening into the broad hallway. He gave them a cursory glance, certain that they would hold no secrets. The floors creaked as he moved about, but Jimson wouldn’t hear that. The old man’s bedroom was in the back to one side of the kitchen and appeared to have been a maid’s room at one time, for there were roses on the wallpaper and the iron bed had a floral design at its head. The lamp was serviceable, as were the chair, the stool, and a table. The washstand was oak and had seen better times, the mirror cloudy with age. A jug of water stood on a second table by the bed, and there was a pipe rack next to it, with a tin of tobacco beside it. From the look of the pipes, none of them had been smoked for years, but the aroma of Turkish tobacco lingered and stirred when Rutledge moved one or two.

  Upstairs were several bedrooms and a pair of bathrooms. One of the rooms had a rocking chair beside a marble-topped washstand with fresh towels on the racks on e
ither side, a pitcher of water in the bowl. Clothes hung in the closet, mostly coveralls and worn men’s shirts that must have been Simon’s at one time but carried Aurore’s scent now. A pair of straw hats stood on the closet shelf, one of them with a hole in the brim, the other with a sweat-stained band.

  The room had an intimate feel to it, as if she’d just left. The candlestick on the bedside table was burned down to half. He wondered if sometimes she’d spent the night here. The bedsheets were soft with age but freshly washed.

  The other rooms bore the signs of neglect, a fine sheen of dust on the furniture, a cobweb hanging down above a bedpost, but clean enough for all that. No one had been in these rooms, he thought, for months.

  The attic was filled with bits and pieces of old furniture, leather luggage green with age, chairs without seats, broken lamps, a child’s crib and a nursing rocker. He looked into corners, behind the headboards of beds, beyond the empty trunks, into the empty cases, and there was nothing to be seen.

  In the end he gave up and went to the barn, quartering it while a cat followed him about, rubbing against his trouser legs when he stopped to look at a box of gear or a stack of tiles or old boots crammed into a bin.

  But the barn yielded nothing, and he stood there in the loft, looking at the thick piles of hay, wondering if it was worth his while to dig through the lot. Hamish, tired and irritable, said, “You’ll no’ solve the riddle here.…”

  And it was true, but he made the effort to look into the outbuildings and into overturned carts, startling a hen with a clutch of eggs under one. She squawked sharply at him, dashing off with wings flapping.

  When he came back to where Jimson was finishing his work on the barrow, the old man said, “Well, you wanted to do it, didn’t you? And for what? You haven’t found what you was looking for.”

  “No.” He turned to look at the sky. The sun was sinking toward the west, casting long shadows and golden stripes across the lawn and the fields behind the barn. It would be dark quite soon. Seven or eight heavily uddered cows were staring at him from the gate near the milking shed, and he could hear the lowing of others making their slow way home. Jimson wheeled the barrow toward the barn. Rutledge called his thanks but remembered that the man couldn’t hear his voice. Couldn’t hear a car or footsteps in the house at night.

  He found himself wondering if Aurore might have entertained lovers there.

  Feeling depressed, he got back into the car and drove to Charlbury.

  “At least,” Hamish offered, “you did na’ find anything.”

  “I was one man. Hildebrand will bring half a dozen. More.”

  Henry Daulton was standing by the churchyard, his eyes on the rooks wheeling above the truncated tower, settling uneasily for the night. He waved as Rutledge passed. Then Mrs. Prescott was hailing him, and he stopped the car.

  “I hear that there’s to be an arrest tomorrow. That Inspector Hildebrand is coming to do it himself. I thought you were in charge! The man from London.”

  “No. It’s his investigation. I came to coordinate the search for the children. That’s finished.” He felt tired, his eyes gritty from the dusty barn and the staleness of the farm’s attics.

  “But what about Mr. Simon? What’s to happen to him?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing. He isn’t the person Hildebrand is after.”

  “Why would anyone want to kill Betty Cooper,” she demanded, “much less a friend of the Wyatts! It makes no sense. That’s what you ought to be saying to the police in Singleton Magna, why would the Wyatts want to harm her? If you want to save Mrs. Wyatt from the gallows and her husband from a death of grief, that’s the question you ought to be asking!”

  Rutledge shook his head. “I’ve asked that question and found no answer. If you have any, I’m willing to hear them. Besides, no one can be sure that the other body is Betty Cooper’s. The timing isn’t there, Mrs. Prescott, whatever you want to believe. Betty left six months ago, not three.”

  She was vehement, her face ablaze with purpose. “I told you once, if you want to hide the recent dead, do it in a fresh grave. Betty Cooper wanted to work in a gentleman’s house. Mr. Simon couldn’t hire her, he already had Edith. I can’t see that he’d have sent her away empty-handed! Not Mr. Simon. He’d have done what he could for the girl, for Mrs. Daulton’s sake. Have you even asked him? What they talked about, those two?”

  Rutledge stared at her, and she grinned self-consciously. “No,” he said slowly. “I don’t think anyone has.”

  “Well, I’d not let it linger on the tongue too long, or that Inspector Hildebrand will be back tomorrow with his warrants!”

  He saluted her and backed up the car until he was in front of the Wyatt gate. He met Elizabeth at the front door, her face anguished. She caught his arm and dragged him into the parlor, shutting the door. “For God’s sake, what’s happening? No one will tell me. Aurore is in her room, I think she’s crying. Simon has shut himself up in the museum and won’t let me in. And my father was here in Charlbury, I saw him speaking to you, but he wouldn’t come to the house, he just sent Benson with a note telling me to leave straightaway. That madman Hildebrand’s to blame, isn’t he, it all went wrong when he came! For God’s sake, what’s it all about?”

  “I don’t know. Hildebrand has finally convinced himself that Mowbray didn’t kill Margaret Tarlton—we were all fairly certain of that, it isn’t news. But if Mowbray didn’t kill her, then it has to be someone from Charlbury, you see. And it was Aurore Wyatt who was set to take Margaret Tarlton to meet the train.”

  “Aurore.” She said the name unconsciously, as if tasting it on her tongue. “You’re saying that it was Aurore? But why?”

  “I don’t know. There are several theories making the rounds. It seems she’s become the popular candidate, now that Mowbray’s out of the running.”

  “But Simon will feel responsible! It was Simon who wanted Margaret to come here as his assistant!”

  “No,” Rutledge answered bluntly. “It was your scheming that brought her here to interview for the position of assistant.”

  “But what about that man Shaw?” she demanded frantically. “He was wild with Margaret for not seeing him. He taunts me every time I go into the Wyatt Arms. I can’t imagine Aurore battering anyone to death, but Shaw could do it! He’s been a soldier, he knows how to kill!”

  “Knowing how to kill doesn’t make you a murderer,” he told her. But he had killed his share of men, in the war. Was that so very different? He could feel Hamish asking that same question in the depths of his mind. “Simon was also a serving officer. If Daniel Shaw is suspect because of his war record, we mustn’t forget Simon Wyatt.”

  “Stop it, do you hear me? Simon hasn’t killed anyone! I’d believe Aurore did it before I’d believe Simon could have! I’ve never understood her, I can’t think why he ever married her! Can’t you do anything? Can’t you find out what it is Hildebrand wants?”

  There was a pounding at the door that cut short his response. Elizabeth said something under her breath and went to answer it.

  From where he was standing, he could see the heavy door swing open at the same instant a slurred, angry voice cried, “I want to know, damn you! I want to know who killed her!”

  It was Shaw standing there, his face white, his body tense with pain.

  “You’re drunk, disgusting! Go away!” Elizabeth said curtly, preparing to close the door in his face. Behind him the night was black, clouds having moved in with the sunset and now obscuring the stars. Somewhere in the garden a toad sang its mating call, and a moth swept through the bright square of light cast across the lawns. Shaw struck the door with his arm, forcing it open again, and stepped inside. Rutledge, moving swiftly from the parlor, was there to meet him, at Elizabeth’s back.

  He said, “Go home, Shaw. I told you I’d give you a name, once it was certain. But it isn’t certain. Hildebrand has jumped the gun.”

  “Truit’s in the Arms, bragging. They’re prepared to mak
e an arrest, damn you!” He stared over Elizabeth’s head at Rutledge’s face, pain in his eyes that wasn’t all from the pain in his body. “I’m not drunk. I want the truth!”

  “Wait by my car, and I’ll tell you what I know,” Rutledge said. “If you don’t go, I’ll have you arrested for disorderly conduct.”

  Shaw bit his lip against the pain and said, “I’ll wait here on the step. I don’t think I could walk that far!” He stepped backward, nearly lost his balance, and sat heavily on the step, crouched protectively over his wound.

  Elizabeth said, “You are drunk!”

  Rutledge caught her arm and pulled her from the door as he shut it.

  She turned on him, saying, “the wolves are gathering!”

  “Listen to me! This can matter more than your wolves. Does the name Betty Cooper mean anything to you?”

  Something stirred in her eyes. Curiosity? Calculation? He couldn’t be sure in the dim light that reached the hall from the parlor.

  “She was a serving girl, if that’s the one you mean. Simon suggested we might consider finding her a place in London. We’d lost two of the younger maids to other positions, he must have known.”

  “And so he sent her to you from here?”

  “Well, we expected her to come to us on a trial basis, but she never arrived. I don’t see what this has to do with anything! There isn’t time!”

  “When was that?”

  “Nearly six months ago. Just after Simon came back from France and opened the house here in Charlbury. That’s not important, I tell you—”

  “Yes, it is,” he answered her. “If Betty Cooper didn’t arrive at your door, where did she go?” And why hadn’t she taken up Simon’s proposal that she work for the Napiers? It was a position beyond the dreams of a country girl who wanted to make her way in London. Nor did it explain why the body was only three months dead. Mrs. Prescott was wrong; his questions led him nowhere.

  “How should I know? Girls go to London every day, I can’t be responsible for the fate of any of them!”